THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Gilding the Lily: Inside the Cut Flower Industry
Her extensive research is a must-read – this is not a book designed solely for people interested in growing flowers, or people who love the beauty of flowers in the house – it is a book that has a wider focus and is able to join the dots between first world consumption, the quest for a luxury item and what happens to an industry when a product (and the people who create it) become a commodity measured only in price.
Here are some key quotes from the book…
On breeding a rose for the cut flower market…
“7 years to design a rose in a laboratory and bring it to market. 6000 miles from a geneticist in Amsterdam to a farmer in Ecuador. 3 months of careful watching and waiting while the Valentines Day crop grows. 5 days, 2 airplanes, and a couple of trucks to get them to my house… they’d last a week in the vase.”
On the ephemeral nature of cut flowers…
“What amazed me most about this extraordinarily complex worldwide industry is this: they do it all for something as perishable and ephemeral as a flower. Airplanes fly in from Kenya and trucks drive from Holland and acres of greenhouses get built and billions of dollars change hands. All that for the alstroemerias you pick up at the grocery store as an afterthought…”
On seasonal vs trade flowers…
“The cut flower trade is all about this struggle between what is natural and unspoiled and what is mass produced and commercial.”
On flowers as a symbol of love…
“If the mixed bouquet of red roses and pink chrysanthemums designed by a national wire service at Valentines Day is indistinguishable from 1000’s of others delivered that same day all across the country, does that make the message it carries any less significant?”
On Gilding the Lily…
“The more time I spent around the flower industry, the more I wondered if we were expecting too much from them (the flowers). Who are we to take a symbol of perfection, purity, and love and try to improve upon it… are we, in fact, gilding the lilly?”
On the florists impact…
“I realised that one reason why customers have so little idea where flowers come from is that their only point of contact in the industry – the florist – may have little idea either.”
On an opinion she heard about organic flowers…
“Why have organic flowers when you don’t eat them?”
(And to that last comment we reply – because it is a choice of how we treat the landscape…)
So that is Gilding the Lily by Amy Stewart, which you can buy at a lovely low price here at Amazon.
And here is is Part Two.
Topiary, The Art Garden at The Henderson
The Art Garden at The Henderson in Hong-Kong has now opened to the public. I joined the project last March, to work with Gillespies Landscape Architects on the topiary that had been designed for the Art Garden, which gives a calm, green space below the extraordinary Henderson skyscraper designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The garden has been designed with butterflies in mind, so lots of nectar plants, and has other art projects and installations within its footprint. The history of the site is interesting too – it was originally the first cricket ground in Hong-Kong! So still a green space….! …
ClipFest 2025
On Sunday June 22nd there will be Clipfest 2025 at Ichi-Coo Park in Surrey. It is a celebration of all things pruning and topiary, and I will be there in my capacity of teacher at the European Boxwood and Topiary Society to demonstrate tool cleaning and sharpening, and how to clip. Tickets can be found here on Eventbrite. We are hoping for great weather and to see lots of keen pruners getting their shears out and joining us at this amazing garden! And for more on topiary…
Secateur Holders
A present arrived from Norway today, from a student who visited last February to work with Chris Poole and I on learning topiary. His new hobby – a beautiful and neatly stitched secateur holder. Thrilled with this! The holder will save me keep losing my secatuers too…! Thank you Bernt! It was the same student who introduced me to the APA with whom I am doing a talk at the end of March. Tickets can be bought here for ‘Defining The Essence – Aesthetic Pruning in the Garden’. Do join the European Boxwood and Topiary Society for that!